title: Phonological reduction in maternal speech in northern Australian English: change over time.
abstract: Segmental variation in maternal speech to children changes over time. This study investigated variation in non-citation speech processes in a longitudinal, 26-hour corpus of maternal northern Australian English. Recordings were naturalistic parent-child interactions when children (N=4) were 1;6, 2;0, and 2;6. The mothers' speech was phonetically transcribed and analyzed. Based on previous sociophonetic research showing proportional changes in speech variants in maternal speech as children get older, it was predicted that deletion of word-initial /h/ and word-final /v/, processes common in non-citation speech, would increase over time. Instead results showed a non-linear change in deletion within a stable set of lexical items. Deletion proportionately increased between 1;6 and 2;0 and decreased between 2;0 and 2;6. Further analysis indicated increased deletion was not accounted for by changes in speech rate, which only marginally increased over time. Findings suggest mothers fine-tune differentially over time as children's receptive and productive language knowledge develops.
authors.affiliation: Interdisciplinary Educational Research Institute (IERI) and Faculty of Education,University of Wollongong;NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Mental Health and Substance Use, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre,University of New South Wales.
authors.forename: Heather
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Buchan
authors.affiliation: Interdisciplinary Educational Research Institute (IERI) and Faculty of Education,University of Wollongong;The MARCS Institute,University of Western Sydney.
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jones
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008425:Maternal Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D015876:Northern Territory; D010699:Phonation; D010700:Phonetics; D013067:Speech Perception; D014705:Verbal Behavior